What Trump’s Immigrant Detention Policy Is – And What It Is Not

Amid the nice weather and world cup, it seems to be the case that multiple different political and social issues have slipped through the cracks over the last couple of weeks or so. People are more likely to be aware of what the scores were for the games eight days ago but not know that 81 people have been murdered this year alone in London by knife. Whilst the media buzz around the weather and football is a nice break from the news; we can’t sit around and just ignore what is going on in the UK, and further still in the rest of the world.
The first, and only thing really, thing that came to my mind when I was planning what to write about was this whole business with Trump and splitting families up. I felt like even though I feel up to date with the world, I had little to no idea about what the situation was there; primarily because no one is actually talking about it. Sifting through all the fake news was honestly unbearable, I could see why people ignore these kinds of things. Here is the crux of what I found:
At the actual heart of the executive order- the things Trump can just make up on the spot like the now infamous Muslim ban- it seemed for a better word; ridiculous. The president set out to prosecute all adults who try to cross the Mexican border illegally; whether they want to work there or seek asylum was irrelevant. Since children can’t be jailed with their parents, they were separated. The BBC reported the figure at 2,300 children being removed between 5th of May to the 9th of June- averaging at 65 a day. The main opposition to all of this is doctors, with the head of the American Academy of Paediatrics going so far as to call the policy “child abuse” and against “everything we stand for as paediatricians”; which I get.

Thing is, the opposition has one valid point; child safety.

Advocates of this fiasco are saying that the children could be taken away from potential dangerous and criminal parents and put into the custody of the Department of Health and Human Services. I think the main question is however- what about the kids of normal people just trying to make a life for themselves? Isn’t this too severe? And are the cages necessary?
I had to try and find out why this was going on, and basically, it’s a mess. Trump actually blamed the Democrats (the opposition) for the whole thing and said, “we have to break up the families” because of a law that “Democrats gave us”. I looked around and tied to see if this was true, and it will be no surprise to many that there is no law that US Congress made that demands that migrant families be separated. As irony would have it, these measures may not actually stop the ‘migrant problem’. Most of the families involved are fleeing violence and poverty, meaning that staying is a death sentence.

Its hard to find an event like this- take Australia. From what I know they have some of the strictest policies when it comes to immigration, but even they don’t have a policy that splits parents from their children. Like Michael Flynn, the executive director of the Geneva-based Global Detention Project said, ‘What the US is doing now, there is no equivalent, there’s nothing like this anywhere’- so if you don’t listen to me, listen to him.

To sum up this morbid update, this issue is simply bigger than we realise. Social media has been ablaze about this topic for days now, and understandably so. Its one of those issues that the next generation of history books will mention as a complete failure of legislation and a humanitarian crisis. Sounds cliché but its just time that will either make or break the situation; hopefully the former.

Harvey, Irma and Donald.

I’m sure we have all been watching the news recently in shock that two hurricanes have been ravaging the US and the Caribbean in these past two weeks. The scenes of pure and utter devastation are also seen all over the areas; which are just truly heart-breaking. Efforts are pouring into the damaged cities and towns, but surely there could have been more measures in place to lessen the damage?

We may not think that these natural disasters are nothing to do with politics and in some cases they don’t, but topics like global warming and climate change need to be accepted and thought about more by particular heads of state; fact. When we think about certain ones who could embrace the change a bit more, President Trump does indeed come to mind.

We were all unified in laughing when we saw the infamous 2012 tweet by Trump that stated that ‘Global Warming was created for and by the Chinese in order to make U.S manufacturing non-competitive’ but as time moved on and on, it’s become a bit more serious than a silly tweet. The White House said Monday that President Donald Trump has not altered his views on climate change, despite scientists’ warnings that Hurricanes Irma and Harvey are evidence the warming global climate is making extreme weather worse; which isn’t a great thing to hear. However, he hasn’t been as unforthcoming when it comes to donating money to aid. The President announced he was donating $1 million of his own fortune to help those impacted by Hurricane Harvey which, to give credit where credit is due, is quite a fair amount of money. But Trump isn’t the greatest figure head when it comes to global warming awareness. It is good enough for a head of state to acknowledge a disaster after it happens, and not why it is being caused in the first place?

The United States is indeed a huge part of the increased rate of climate change is happening. Along with China, America produces 44% of the world’s Carbon Dioxide which is the main contributor to the greenhouse effect. It is a very drastic change from the previous Obama administration that is continuously praised for its environmentalist agenda. Under the two terms of Barack Obama, the US found itself helping to prod China to act on climate change, by cutting emissions and switching to cleaner sources of power. Yet, one of the first acts of Mr Trump was to threaten to pull the US out of the Paris deal and remove from the White House website any discussion of the threat of climate change. In its place was a commitment to get rid of Obama’s major environmental policies, something he did with an executive order this March.

I can’t help but feel a bit dismayed at the fact that the current president of the United States can’t put personal opinion, or lack of one, to one side and just put more measure in place. Much more could have done to lessen the damage to the US; Florida and Texas especially. Hopefully this time next year I will find myself praising the Trump administration for dealing with the aftermath of these two horrific natural disasters and not still whinging about him. I just find it very ironic that the President of the United States can’t and won’t entertain the problem of which his country is one of the main cause for.

 

‘They’re not coming to this country if I’m president’

Unless you live under a rock, you would have probably seen the global outcry over Donald Trump’s new executive order over immigration. It has sparked protests all over the world and has received mass condemnation. If you don’t know- an executive order is a legal document that does not require congressional approval which means the president can use them to set policy while avoiding public debate and opposition. This has then enabled to allow Trump to essentially – do what he wants to.

What the order includes is a suspension of the US refugee Admissions program for 120 days and there is also an indefinite ban on Syrian refugees. Anyone coming from seven Muslim-majority countries face a 90-day visa suspension. This countries include Iraq, Iran, Somalia and Sudan. However, diplomats and the UN are not included in the said suspension.

Donald Trump has said that the halt on the refugee program was ‘needed to give government agencies time to develop a stricter system and insure that visas were not issued to individuals posing a national security threat’. He then went on to Facebook and released a statement saying “To be clear, this is not a Muslim ban, as the media is falsely reporting”. This is a bit farfetched however as I think that this is exactly what this is. Don’t forget that in the last Republican debate Trump said that ‘They’re not coming to this country if I’m president’ whilst referring to Muslims; which is rather sobering.

Even at home Theresa may is feeling the heat over President Trump’s actions. Her own MP’s are disagreeing over her almost nonchalant attitude over his ban and the fact that she is carrying on with a state visit by Trump- even though 1.3 million people have signed a petition against it. Whilst on the other hand Jeremy Corbyn has urged the PM to postpone the visit.

The thing is, this ban doesn’t even seem to appear legal at all. In 1965 there was an act passed that meant that no one could be discriminated against because of their ‘gender, nationality, place of birth or place of residence”- It was called the immigration and Nationality Act. The fact that they are all Muslim countries does make the order rather ‘anti-muslim’- which the Trump administration has been quick to dismiss.

What has been dominating the news and peoples own minds is how this is all going to be done. Naturally, there is a lot of speculation and confusion about the act and why it was targeted so specifically at Muslims. Social media has pointed out that the list does not include countries where President Trump has business interests – like Saudi Arabia – a suggestion dismissed by the president’s chief of staff as not related.

The world has been thrown into complete chaos- and the Trump administration has only really just started.

 

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183 Days in.

Ahh, 2017.

We are only just hitting the halfway point and I must say that its been rather hectic. The year only starts to look even crazier when you look at it close up. Lets break this half of the year up by looking at some political happenings that so far, have kept us all looking at our news app’s in disbelief.

It only seems fitting to start off with the leader of the free world. Trump has made this the year of politicians actually communicating with their constituents on the likes of Twitter and Facebook- even if that is blocking them. In May, we had Trump vs former FBI chief James Comey, who has the word ‘former’ in his title due to his odd sacking by the president. The US was thrust in a showdown that made the whole world question the integrity of the current administration- but it made for some great television. May also brought the most iconic tweet mis-spell to Twitter- ‘covfefe’. Most recently we had Donald tweet a video of him beating up an incarnation of CNN- you know, back in the days when he just rocked up at WWE.

May also brought us one of the most surprising election results of modern time- the election of Emmanuel Macron as youngest French president of all time, since the one and only Napoleon. His win was unforeseen as the French people completely disregarded their two main parties and voted for a man who was the Minister of the Economy, Industry and Digital Affairs a just a year prior. He beat far-Right candidate Marie Le Pen by having a vote share of 65.5%, which is quite impressive when you think that Macron has never held political office.

Now of course, what would a roundup of this half of the year be without talking about the wonder that is British politics. We had the budget in March that stated that the UK was the second-fastest growing economy in the G7 in 2016, which is always nice to hear. We also saw £320m of funding for 110 new free schools and grammar schools that was greatly praised by all political parties and spectrums. Then in June, almost a year after the referendum vote, we had the election that made the nation just really baffled. Due to social media marketing, numerous endorsements by different celebrities and rigorous campaigning- it was predicted that we were going to have a Labour government.  What the country woke up to was quite frankly, a bit of a mess. We had a hung parliament after the Conservatives fell short of a majority with having 42.4% of the vote share, closely followed by Labour’s 40%.  We are still in uncertain waters however, as the deal with the DUP is not really that that transparent. I’m sure as we head towards the other half of the year, the country will have a fully- realised government that can actually get their teeth into the crucial Brexit talks.

This year has had some awful and tragic events, with the recent Grenfell tower fire being one of them. The people gave out heart-warming and just brilliant reactions to these divisive acts. The ‘one love’ Manchester concert was a perfect and beautiful way of proving to the world that we are just not going to give in to anything that we see as terrorism. However, with every tragic event that seems to be haunting the news everyday, you have pure comedic brilliance that will over shadow the distressing news.

We have had an MP actually dab in the houses of commons and Elmo running for the same seat as The one and only, Theresa May. Let us not also forget the now iconic Lord Buckethead who managed to earn 249 votes- in the same constituency of the Prime minister. He has been representing the ‘Gremloids’ since the days of Thatcher and made UK twitter go into a complete frenzy. His most popular protest is the widely viewed video of him complaining about the service of Pizza Express; truly, a man for the people.

In summary- politics is baffling. We have only had half a year and I’m starting to think that the madness and the unplanned nature of current events have only just started to begin.

Reading the news every morning has certainly got a lot more entertaining this half of the year. I wonder what political happenings we will be discussing as we enter 2018. Surely there can’t be any more space lords wanting to lead the country?

 

 

 

 

 

 

The aftermath of Brexit: What has actually happned since the vote?

If you are anything like myself, you are probably wondering what has actually happened after the vote to leave the European Union happened. The whole thing has really taken a backseat in the media meaning that any information about process hasn’t really been stated. Just as a quick reminder, here is a breakdown of the day’s events:

53.4% of the UK voted to leave while the remainder of the population either voted to stay, 46.6%, or didn’t vote at all. David Cameron resigned the day after the vote saying that ‘the country requires fresh leadership to take it in this direction’. This led to Theresa May, the former home secretary, taking over the position as Prime Minister. Like Cameron, May was actually against leaving but she has said in multiple press conferences that she will respect the will of the British people. The key phrase she keeps repeating is ‘Brexit means Brexit’ but there has been a lot of speculation to what that actually means; but here is what we know what has actually happened since the vote in June.

Our economy actually managed to weather the initial aftermath of vote, but the pound does still remain at a near 30-year low. The currency’s continuing weakness has been made even worse by the cut in interest rates and the fact that Britain also lost its top AAA credit rating; which basically means that the cost of government borrowing will be higher.

Theresa May in the end decided to set up a government department to take responsibility for Brexit and the process of actually leaving. This department consist of three men, with one of them being Boris Johnson, and have been titled by the media as the ‘Three Brexiteers’. Their role is to play a central role in negotiations with the EU itself and to set out creating new international agreements. May has said that once Article 50, the one that lets us leave, has been triggered, the UK will have 2 years to negotiate our withdrawal. The thing is, no one really knows how this whole thing is going to work; Article 50 was created in 2009 and no one has used it. The entire process of us actually leaving is surrounded in so much uncertainty that politicians can’t really tell the public how to prepare or what is going to happen; hence why there is so much of a tense relationship and lack of trust towards the government from the general public. 43 years of treaties and alliances that cover thousands of different subjects have to be unpicked, which is never going to be easy.

Something that has definitely happened from the vote is a staggering raise in the number of hate crime in the UK. Police have stated that reported hate crime rose by 57% in the four days after the referendum. The number of hate crimes overall in this year has increased by 19% since last year; which is very sobering. The tragic murder of MP Jo Cox by a white supremacist was even before the vote occurred.

Even though there have been some devastating events in the aftermath of the vote, lets not forget that there are some strong benefits to leaving, which is why over half the country voted out. Though it is a lot less than the leave campaign claimed, the saving of our money from not contributing to EU funds are still substantial and can be spent on the British people instead and what we all want. We could still build a competitive economy outside of the EU and live in a stable and venerable democracy.

Here is the crucial thing; the UK will leave the European Union around March 2019. What occurs between now and then is up to a group of people called the ‘Three Brexiteers’ and the EU. Whatever happens, it may be comforting to know that at least we still have Magic stars in Tesco.

 

 

 

Trump: New leader, new policies.

Among the hashtags, crying and novelty American flags, Donald Trump has become the new President of the United States of America- but just who voted for him, and why?

Of all the 120 million people who voted in this election, Trump scored 53% of the male vote. This isn’t really surprising, but the 42% of women who did vote for Trump came to a total shock to the world. Considering the rather outrageous comments he made back in 2005 about women, it just was not conceivable to the experts that this is the result he would get from women. What was expected however were the 8% of black and 29% of the Hispanic votes that he somehow managed to achieve on the day. Analysts have reported that the 29% of Hispanic voters who supported Donald Trump was a small jump from the 27% who voted for the Republican candidate Mitt Romney in 2012, despite Mr Trump’s comments about Mexicans and plans to build a wall on the US’s southern border. Despite there being a clear victory from Trump, there is one question that is on repeat from most of the conservations going on around, and its ‘what does he actually stand for’. Here are some of his basic policies that he has sworn to deliver:

• Create 25 million new jobs over the next decade by increasing GDP growth
• Replace Obamacare with Health Savings Accounts (HSAs).
• Make clean water a high priority. Develop a long-term water infrastructure plan with city, state and federal leaders to upgrade aging water systems.
• Provide both mental and physical care for veterans and get rid of waiting backlogs.
• Negotiate fair trade deals that create American jobs, increase American wages, and reduce America’s trade deficit.
• Add an additional federal investment of $20 billion towards schools and colleges across America.
• Provide 6 weeks of paid leave to new mothers before returning to work.

Out of all of these, most news outlets are saying that his Veteran and immigration policies are what won him this election. The policies he has to deal with ISIS and terrorism have also been key to him securing the majority.

The fact of the matter is from January the 20th, 2017, Donald J Trump will be president of the United States. He did it with half the amount of donor cash that Clinton had and had the media constantly proposed to him throughout the last 18 months. UK Prime Minister Theresa May said she was “looking forward to working with him, in a strong trade, security and defence partnership” so the UK can start to digest the news of the new president elect without worrying about trade security and relations. It’s been a hectic couple of hours and the frenzy in the media will eventually die down, but until then- the future is very unclear and uncertain for the States.

 

The EU- What’s in it for me?

Let’s face it, we all have our own views about the impending referendum which will decide if the UK should stay in the EU or not. The main question on everyone’s lips is ‘What is in it for me?’. Whether we like it or not the EU affects our daily living more than we all really realise, and here is how.

For starters, the European Union (EU) is made out of 28 member states which include Sweden, Germany and the United Kingdom. We actually joined in 1973, which was quite a while after it was first created after World War two. It was made with the idea in mind that countries who trade together are less likely to go to war. Most of the budget that the EU has goes directly to helping public sectors of work in the countries that are members, which doesn’t seem that bad. However, the argument that most people have towards the spending of the EU is that they focus more on the capitalistic sides of things and not peacekeeping.

The conservatives stated in their election manifesto that they would hold a referendum and seeing as they won it is now a reality. It will happen towards the end of 2017 as they have a busy year this year with the elections else where. This could have happened way back in 2013 when David Cameron announced his pledge to hold a referendum but because it was too short of notice to the EU, they declined it. In November last year, he sent a letter to the EU stating the changes he wants to make, which they have yet to issue a formal statement about.

The UK being a part of the EU really does affect everyone of all ages. Planning on back packing around Europe in your gap year? Do you find yourself wanting to go to university in Europe?  You may have to start saving up for these now. Both of these will be made so much harder to do so without us being one of the 28. The UK really does get a lot from the EU, whether it be workers from other countries or cars that we use for our every day lives. It is also said that Britain’s status in the world would really be compromised if we left. As a whole, we are so much safer from outside threats if we stay in the EU. Safety in numbers is very relevant in this case.

In terms of opinions, the government has mixed ones. During the election both the Lib Dems and Labour said that they did not want a referendum. It also happened that the SNP did not want one either which is quite ironic seeing as they wanted independence from the UK. On the other side, it turned out the Conservatives, UKIP and the green party backed the idea. David Cameron, despite the referendum, really does want to stay in the EU, he just wants things to change and power to come back to Britain and that is really not a tall order from them. Most other parties are for staying in the EU as they realise that it really is crucial to how this country works. The only party that has an opposing view to the matter is UKIP, but that is because their ministers believe that the EU holds us back.

Now, regardless of what side of the fence you sit with politics, you can not deny the simple and undeniable fact that the EU is so important to the way we live as a whole. The referendum that will happen at the end of 2017 will affect this country massively and decisions and votes are starting to happen now. It sounds as cliché as anything but only time can really tell how this referendum will turn out.